Abstract
This study examined the microinteractions of pedestrians in Japan and in the United States as they walked past a confederate. Specifically, the effects of culture, condition (avoid, look-only, and look plus smile) and sex of confederate on glances, smiles, nods, and greetings by passing pedestrians were examined in a field study on over 1000 participants. The hypotheses of (1) lower responsiveness in Japanese pedestrians than in American pedestrians and (2) increased responsiveness as a function of condition were supported in a series of log-linear analyses of pedestrian glances, smiles, nods, and greetings. Both of these main effects were, however, qualified by Culture X Condition interactions on smiles, nods, and greetings, with the large condition effects present in the American pedestrians, but absent in the Japanese pedestrians. The results are discussed in terms of the functions of glances, smiles, nods, and greetings in these brief encounters and how differing cultural norms affect Japanese and American responsiveness. Finally, the limitations of this study and the broader utility of this research paradigm are discussed.
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Notes
The results of Patterson et al. (2002) study were completed and communicated to Iizuka several years before the Patterson et al. (2002) study was published. Iizuka used the methodology in his own study in Japan. Revisions and a long publication lag with the Patterson et al. (2002) study resulted in the Iizuka study being published first.
The reactions of all of the pedestrians in the look and look and smile conditions were included whether or not they actually turned and glanced at the confederates in the passing zone. Because this undoubtedly included some pedestrians who did not notice the confederates’ look or look and smile, this constitutes a very conservative test of condition effects.
Before the data collection was started in Japan, the second author visited the first author in the U.S. and discussed the details of the manipulations and the response measures so that the procedures would be standardized in the Japanese sample.
It was not possible to compute a reliability coefficient for the greeting measure with the Japanese data because there was no variability in the observers’ judgments, i.e., they reported no greetings, while the confederates reported a single greeting.
In those instances where there was a confederate and observer disagreement, two decision rules were employed in determining a scored reaction. First, if either person made an uncertain judgment and the other person judged that the behavior was present or absent, the present or absent judgment was selected as the final one. For any other disagreement (e.g., the confederate judging that a smile occurred and the observer judging that a smile did not occur), the confederate’s judgment was selected as the final one because the confederate was closer to the participant when making the judgment.
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Acknowledgements
We want to thank the students who served as confederates and observers: Kazuaki Maehara, Masaki Miyata, Seiji Nishimura, Akiko Seno, Kayo Sakaguchi, Masumi Imano, Susan Heine, Sara Larez, Greg Van Mierlo, Wesley Ruehl, and Travis Fitzgerald.
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Parts of this study were presented as a poster at the meeting of Society of Personality and Social Psychology, Palm Springs, CA, January 2006.
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Patterson, M.L., Iizuka, Y., Tubbs, M.E. et al. Passing Encounters East and West: Comparing Japanese and American Pedestrian Interactions. J Nonverbal Behav 31, 155–166 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-007-0028-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-007-0028-4